What happened
The UK Court of Appeal is hearing the second day of Getty Images' appeal in its copyright and trade mark dispute with Stability AI, the developer of the Stable Diffusion image generator, according to a report from the law firm Burges Salmon. The appeal challenges the High Court's November 2025 first-instance judgment, which Burges Salmon describes as a mixed outcome that largely favoured Stability AI: Getty succeeded on a small part of its trade mark claim, but its copyright claim failed.
According to Burges Salmon, the High Court's November 2025 judgment rejected Getty's secondary copyright infringement claim. Because Stable Diffusion was trained outside the UK, Getty had already dropped its primary copyright claims during the trial. Its remaining case argued that Stable Diffusion was an 'infringing copy' that had been imported into and distributed in the UK. The High Court accepted that an AI model can be an 'article' under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 even though it is intangible, but held that an infringing copy must be a copy — and because Stable Diffusion's model weights never stored Getty's images, the model could not be an infringing copy.
The central question on appeal, as framed by Burges Salmon, is whether an AI model can be an 'infringing copy' for the purposes of secondary copyright infringement under section 27(3) of the CDPA when the model itself has never contained a copy of the works in question. Getty argues that 'making' a model includes training it, which involves copying images, and that the law does not require the finished model to contain copies of the training works for it to be an infringing copy.
The British Recorded Music Industry Limited (BPI) has been given permission to intervene in support of Getty, Burges Salmon reports. BPI warns that the High Court's approach could allow AI developers to train models offshore and bring them back into the UK, with significant consequences for the music and wider creative industries. BPI also argues that the Getty judgment has 'no wider significance' on whether AI models contain copies of their training data, noting that Getty accepted at trial that the Stable Diffusion versions at issue did not contain such copies, and citing two recent German cases in which the Munich Court found that AI models had 'memorised' and contained copyright works from their training data.
Stability AI argues the High Court was right: whether something is a copy depends on what is actually produced, not on how it was developed. It contends Getty's approach would produce odd results, such as making it unlawful to import a model but lawful to copy it once in the UK, and that extending the law to models trained overseas is a matter for Parliament, not the courts. Stability AI is also asking the Court of Appeal to overturn two first-instance findings that went against it: that an intangible model can be an 'article', and that Stability AI itself imported or distributed the model in the UK. Getty disputes both points.
Source details: burges-salmon.com
Why it matters
The appeal's outcome will shape how UK copyright law applies to AI models trained overseas that do not store copies of the works used to train them. Burges Salmon reports that if Getty wins, AI developers could face UK copyright claims over models trained abroad on unlicensed works even when the imported model contains no copies of those works. If Stability AI wins, where a model was trained and whether it stores copies will remain decisive for potential claims. The case is therefore being watched closely by rights holders and AI developers across the creative industries.
The ruling will determine whether UK copyright claims can reach AI models trained abroad on unlicensed works even when the imported model stores no copies of those works — a question Burges Salmon describes as one of the most closely watched intellectual property disputes of the era.
A Getty win would expose AI developers to UK copyright liability over offshore training on unlicensed content; a Stability AI win would leave the location of training and whether a model actually stores copies as the key factors in potential claims against AI companies.
The BPI intervention signals that the outcome is seen as consequential well beyond stock imagery, potentially affecting the music industry and other creative sectors concerned about offshore training and importation of AI models.
The case also lands amid the UK Government's continuing consideration of copyright and AI policy following its March 2026 report, meaning the court's reading of the existing statute could interact with, or be overtaken by, future legislative action.
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What to watch next
The Court of Appeal's judgment, which Burges Salmon says it will report when handed down, with no date given. Also watch the UK Government's ongoing consideration of copyright and AI policy following its March 2026 report, and whether Parliament rather than the courts addresses the overseas-training question, as Stability AI argues it should.
The Court of Appeal's judgment, which Burges Salmon says it will report when handed down; no date for the ruling is given in the source.
Whether the court upholds or overturns the two first-instance findings Stability AI is challenging: that an intangible model can be an 'article', and that Stability AI imported or distributed the model in the UK.
How the UK Government's post-March 2026 deliberations on copyright and AI interact with the ruling, particularly given Stability AI's argument that extending the law to overseas-trained models is a matter for Parliament.
Whether the memorisation issue highlighted by BPI — whether models contain copies of training data — becomes a live issue in future UK cases, given the German Munich Court findings BPI cites.